Shifting Emphasis from Parental Youth to Parental Age in Studies of the Timing of Parenthood: Rationale, Research Findings, and Recommendations

Reported in this paper are results from two studies undertaken to explore the impact of parental age on childrearing practices. The first study involved administering the Child Rearing Practices Report to 65 adult participants, then asking the participants to describe their parents' childrearing attitudes. Results suggest that those respondents who were born to parents age 33 or older perceived their parents as being warmer and less likely to adhere to stereotypical parental roles. The second study provided for a secondary analysis of observational data collected in the homes of 52 families. Multiple regression analyses indicated that parental age effects are more apparent for mothers than for fathers and that women who are older when their children are born maintain higher levels of interaction with those children and are more positively disposed toward them. Further research to explore the timing of parenthood from the parents' perspective is recommended. In addition, the possibility that delayed parenthood may represent an adaptive mechanism for coping with a depressed economic climate is discussed. (Author/MP)